It is hard to believe the United Nations' reputation as an
international peacekeeping organization could sink any lower, but
it just has. The BBC's flagship investigative news program,
Panorama, revealed this week that the UN's biggest peacekeeping
mission, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has been
blighted by yet another scandal. The 18-month BBC study into the
conduct of the 17,000 strong, $1.1 billion a year operation (known
as MONUC) found that UN troops have been involved in arming militia
groups and smuggling gold and ivory. This revelation comes just
three years after it emerged that UN peacekeepers had perpetrated
the widespread abuse of refugees in the war-torn country.

The allegations are hugely embarrassing for the United Nations,
and involve peacekeeping contingents from two of the UN's biggest
contributing nations. According to the BBC investigation, Indian
peacekeepers (who make up a quarter of the MONUC mission) "had
direct dealings with the militia responsible for the Rwandan
genocide" in eastern Congo. The BBC states that "the Indians traded
gold, bought drugs from the militias and flew a UN helicopter into
the Virunga National park, where they exchanged ammunition for
ivory." The BBC also reports that Pakistani peacekeepers, the
second largest group in MONUC, "were involved in the illegal trade
in gold with the FNI militia, providing them with weapons to guard
the perimeter of the mines" in the eastern town of Mongbwalu.

The BBC's claims are extremely damaging to the reputation of the
UN Mission to the Congo as a neutral force, underscoring that some
UN peacekeepers are directly profiting from and even fueling the
continuing violence and human misery that has claimed millions of
lives in the country since the 1990s. Despite its vast mineral
wealth, the DRC is one of the poorest countries on Earth, with an
average 45,000 people a month dying from disease and
starvation.

True to form, the United Nations is officially adopting a
see-no-evil, hear-no-evil approach towards the BBC's revelations,
and points to an internal UN inquiry into the actions of Pakistani
soldiers which found that there was an "absence of corroborative
evidence" to establish they were involved in supplying weapons or
ammunition. The UN's arrogant stance smacks of yet another cover-up
in the upper echelons of power in Turtle Bay, and cries out for a
major external investigation. Senior UN officials are careful not
to alienate two major United Nations members who provide large
numbers of soldiers for UN missions (and gain financially from
doing so).

The UN's stance on the latest Congo scandal is similar to the
one it adopted in 2004 when allegations of sexual abuse first
appeared against MONUC in the British press. It was not until
global media pressure mounted that the UN publicly acknowledged the
scale of the problem late in the year, when then Secretary General
Kofi Annan accepted that "acts of gross misconduct" had been
committed by UN personnel. Journalists documented hundreds of cases
of rape and forced prostitution of women and young girls across the
Congo, including inside a refugee camp in the northeastern town of
Bunia. The refugees were victims of predatory UN peacekeepers and
civilian personnel from an array of countries, including France,
Pakistan, Nepal, Morocco, Tunisia, Uruguay, South Africa and
Tunisia. In the words of William Lacy Swing, the chief UN official
on the ground at the time, "peacekeepers who have been sworn to
assist those in need, particularly those who have been victims of
sexual violence, instead have caused grievous harm."

The horrific UN crimes in the Congo continued a pattern that had
run through nearly all major UN peacekeeping operations, going back
more than a decade, from Sierra Leone and Liberia to Kosovo and
Guinea. The Congo scandal was followed by widespread evidence of
rape in the city of Juba by members of the UN Mission in the Sudan
(UNMIS) in early 2007, when the London Daily Telegraph
reported that possibly hundreds of young refugees in southern Sudan
may have been abused by UN peacekeepers. More recently, in December
2007, the Los Angeles Times reported that 114 Sri Lankan
troops had been expelled from the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti
accused of sexual exploitation.

Unfortunately, even when peacekeeping troops are deported to
their home countries, they very rarely face trial. A UN Department
of Peacekeeping investigation of 319 personnel across 16
peacekeeping missions between 2004 and 2006 (likely just the tip of
the iceberg) resulted in 179 repatriations but no prosecutions.

The United States has a huge financial stake in the Congo and
other UN missions and should demand full accountability. No U.S.
military personnel serve with MONUC, but American taxpayers
provided a staggering $1.45 billion in funding for the UN operation
between 2000 and 2007. The American contribution to the Sudan
mission has also been significant, with almost $1 billion of
funding provided between 2005 and 2007. In total, the U.S.
contributes 27 percent of the UN's $6.8 billion worldwide
peacekeeping budget, which funds over 100,000 uniformed and
civilian personnel.

As the Oil-for-Food scandal demonstrated, the United Nations
cannot be entrusted to run large-scale operations without
significant external oversight. Nor can its under resourced and
understaffed Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS)
adequately handle scandals on a massive scale. It took several
major Congressional investigations, scores of federal prosecutors,
and a $30 million independent inquiry headed by Paul Volcker to
unearth the full scale of the multi-billion dollar Oil-for-Food
debacle and Saddam's plundering of the humanitarian program with
the willing cooperation of several leading UN figures. Although the
Oil-for-Food investigations did not prompt a full-scale reform of
the United Nations, it exposed massive UN corruption and
mismanagement, forced a clamp down on some of the organization's
worst excesses, and sent several UN officials to jail.

The scale of the abuses in United Nations peacekeeping is so
vast, encompassing so many different UN missions, that a major
independent inquiry backed by the Security Council should be
implemented to help stop the rot. Unlike the Volcker commission
however, in the interests of complete objectivity, such an
investigation should be headed by an individual without close ties
to the Secretary General, and who isn't a direc tor of the United
Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA), or
other UN affiliates. Such an inquiry should be conducted in
parallel with a series of Senate and House investigations and
hearings to ensure complete accountability.

UN peacekeepers must be held to account, and their crimes
aggressively punished by their home governments. The widespread
abuse of their missions by large numbers of UN military (and some
civilian) personnel is a damning indictment of the United Nations
as a world body. The rape and exploitation by UN soldiers of
defenseless refugees, some of the most vulnerable people on the
face of the earth, must be brought to an end. As the world's
largest financial contributor to peacekeeping operations, the
United States must put its foot down and demand change. If the UN
is unwilling to listen, America should put its resources
elsewhere.

Nile
Gardiner is the Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center
for Freedom at theHeritage Foundation.

It is hard to believe the United Nations' reputation as an
international peacekeeping organization could sink any lower, but
it just has. The BBC's flagship investigative news program,
Panorama, revealed this week that the UN's biggest peacekeeping
mission, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has been
blighted by yet another scandal. The 18-month BBC study into the
conduct of the 17,000 strong, $1.1 billion a year operation (known
as MONUC) found that UN troops have been involved in arming militia
groups and smuggling gold and ivory. This revelation comes just
three years after it emerged that UN peacekeepers had perpetrated
the widespread abuse of refugees in the war-torn country.

The allegations are hugely embarrassing for the United Nations,
and involve peacekeeping contingents from two of the UN's biggest
contributing nations. According to the BBC investigation, Indian
peacekeepers (who make up a quarter of the MONUC mission) "had
direct dealings with the militia responsible for the Rwandan
genocide" in eastern Congo. The BBC states that "the Indians traded
gold, bought drugs from the militias and flew a UN helicopter into
the Virunga National park, where they exchanged ammunition for
ivory." The BBC also reports that Pakistani peacekeepers, the
second largest group in MONUC, "were involved in the illegal trade
in gold with the FNI militia, providing them with weapons to guard
the perimeter of the mines" in the eastern town of Mongbwalu.

The BBC's claims are extremely damaging to the reputation of the
UN Mission to the Congo as a neutral force, underscoring that some
UN peacekeepers are directly profiting from and even fueling the
continuing violence and human misery that has claimed millions of
lives in the country since the 1990s. Despite its vast mineral
wealth, the DRC is one of the poorest countries on Earth, with an
average 45,000 people a month dying from disease and
starvation.

True to form, the United Nations is officially adopting a
see-no-evil, hear-no-evil approach towards the BBC's revelations,
and points to an internal UN inquiry into the actions of Pakistani
soldiers which found that there was an "absence of corroborative
evidence" to establish they were involved in supplying weapons or
ammunition. The UN's arrogant stance smacks of yet another cover-up
in the upper echelons of power in Turtle Bay, and cries out for a
major external investigation. Senior UN officials are careful not
to alienate two major United Nations members who provide large
numbers of soldiers for UN missions (and gain financially from
doing so).

The UN's stance on the latest Congo scandal is similar to the
one it adopted in 2004 when allegations of sexual abuse first
appeared against MONUC in the British press. It was not until
global media pressure mounted that the UN publicly acknowledged the
scale of the problem late in the year, when then Secretary General
Kofi Annan accepted that "acts of gross misconduct" had been
committed by UN personnel. Journalists documented hundreds of cases
of rape and forced prostitution of women and young girls across the
Congo, including inside a refugee camp in the northeastern town of
Bunia. The refugees were victims of predatory UN peacekeepers and
civilian personnel from an array of countries, including France,
Pakistan, Nepal, Morocco, Tunisia, Uruguay, South Africa and
Tunisia. In the words of William Lacy Swing, the chief UN official
on the ground at the time, "peacekeepers who have been sworn to
assist those in need, particularly those who have been victims of
sexual violence, instead have caused grievous harm."

The horrific UN crimes in the Congo continued a pattern that had
run through nearly all major UN peacekeeping operations, going back
more than a decade, from Sierra Leone and Liberia to Kosovo and
Guinea. The Congo scandal was followed by widespread evidence of
rape in the city of Juba by members of the UN Mission in the Sudan
(UNMIS) in early 2007, when the London Daily Telegraph
reported that possibly hundreds of young refugees in southern Sudan
may have been abused by UN peacekeepers. More recently, in December
2007, the Los Angeles Times reported that 114 Sri Lankan
troops had been expelled from the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti
accused of sexual exploitation.

Unfortunately, even when peacekeeping troops are deported to
their home countries, they very rarely face trial. A UN Department
of Peacekeeping investigation of 319 personnel across 16
peacekeeping missions between 2004 and 2006 (likely just the tip of
the iceberg) resulted in 179 repatriations but no prosecutions.

The United States has a huge financial stake in the Congo and
other UN missions and should demand full accountability. No U.S.
military personnel serve with MONUC, but American taxpayers
provided a staggering $1.45 billion in funding for the UN operation
between 2000 and 2007. The American contribution to the Sudan
mission has also been significant, with almost $1 billion of
funding provided between 2005 and 2007. In total, the U.S.
contributes 27 percent of the UN's $6.8 billion worldwide
peacekeeping budget, which funds over 100,000 uniformed and
civilian personnel.

As the Oil-for-Food scandal demonstrated, the United Nations
cannot be entrusted to run large-scale operations without
significant external oversight. Nor can its under resourced and
understaffed Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS)
adequately handle scandals on a massive scale. It took several
major Congressional investigations, scores of federal prosecutors,
and a $30 million independent inquiry headed by Paul Volcker to
unearth the full scale of the multi-billion dollar Oil-for-Food
debacle and Saddam's plundering of the humanitarian program with
the willing cooperation of several leading UN figures. Although the
Oil-for-Food investigations did not prompt a full-scale reform of
the United Nations, it exposed massive UN corruption and
mismanagement, forced a clamp down on some of the organization's
worst excesses, and sent several UN officials to jail.

The scale of the abuses in United Nations peacekeeping is so
vast, encompassing so many different UN missions, that a major
independent inquiry backed by the Security Council should be
implemented to help stop the rot. Unlike the Volcker commission
however, in the interests of complete objectivity, such an
investigation should be headed by an individual without close ties
to the Secretary General, and who isn't a direc tor of the United
Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA), or
other UN affiliates. Such an inquiry should be conducted in
parallel with a series of Senate and House investigations and
hearings to ensure complete accountability.

UN peacekeepers must be held to account, and their crimes
aggressively punished by their home governments. The widespread
abuse of their missions by large numbers of UN military (and some
civilian) personnel is a damning indictment of the United Nations
as a world body. The rape and exploitation by UN soldiers of
defenseless refugees, some of the most vulnerable people on the
face of the earth, must be brought to an end. As the world's
largest financial contributor to peacekeeping operations, the
United States must put its foot down and demand change. If the UN
is unwilling to listen, America should put its resources
elsewhere.

Nile
Gardiner is the Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center
for Freedom at theHeritage Foundation.